pimping my plugins
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Warren Murray
Mar 7, 2009, 4:20:24 PM3/7/09
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Hey folks,
As mentioned previously, I have been messing about with Recent Posts and other plugins as an alternative to the thumbnails that I used to get with vPiP but was never really happy with.
It is going really well - in the sidebar at Crash Test Kitchen I now have a thumbnail list of favourite episodes (I choose these myself by adding or removing a 'favourites' category to posts).
Also in the sidebar there's a 'popular today' list of posts that excludes any of the favourites (slight bug with this one - once something gets on the 'popular' list it tends to stay there because it keeps getting clicked by people, so generally long-running 'popular' posts need to get upgraded to 'favourite' by me!).
Finally at the bottom of each blogpost, just above the comments, there's a horizontal list of four 'other episodes you might like' that is generated by the Similar Posts plugin. It excludes favourites and the current post because they're already getting a show elsewhere on the page.
I'm quite happy with how this is all looking and proud to have nutted it out myself.
I would recommend these plugins; you can really heavily configure them and get much more of your content represented on your front page, and in each blogpost.
Also I have added a horizontal list of categories under the header - these are not all my categories, just the ones that have the most posts.
Plugins are here: http://rmarsh.com/
Hope someone finds this useful. Feel free to crosspost to the forum.
Waz
Cheryl Colan
Mar 8, 2009, 2:03:21 PM3/8/09
to show-i...@googlegroups.com
Thanks for this Waz,
I'm going to attempt to summarize, just to make sure I understand what you're doing. Will you please correct me where I'm wrong or fill in any gaps? I'd like to write this up and post it to showinabox.tv - it's about time we had a new article with some solid how-to ideas in it. (I know more will come from the hangoutathon next week, but we should document your work as well, with links so people can see it in action.)
On http://www.crashtestkitchen.com/
Cheryl
I'm going to attempt to summarize, just to make sure I understand what you're doing. Will you please correct me where I'm wrong or fill in any gaps? I'd like to write this up and post it to showinabox.tv - it's about time we had a new article with some solid how-to ideas in it. (I know more will come from the hangoutathon next week, but we should document your work as well, with links so people can see it in action.)
On http://www.crashtestkitchen.com/
- You add a custom field called 'thumbnail' to every episode when you post it. The content you add to this field is the URL of the video's thumbnail image.
- To highlight "Favourite episodes" in the sidebar, you use the Recent Posts plugin from http://rmarsh.com/plugins/recent-posts/ Recent Posts is highly configurable and lets you add it to your sidebar as a widget from the WordPress admin panel. You configured it to add only posts you have marked with a "favourite" category - you use this category exclusively to add/remove episodes from the Favourite episodes area of your sidebar.
- You have Recent Posts configured to call in the 'thumbnail' field from your episodes.
- You also customized Recent Post's HTML to grab a post's title for display alongside the thumbnail, and hyperlink both thumbnail & title to the post's permalink.
- You use the Popular Posts plugin from http://rmarsh.com/plugins/popular-posts-plugin/ to add the "Popular today" section of your sidebar. You configured Popular Posts to exclude episodes in the 'favourites' category. You customized Popular Posts' HTML the same way you did for Recent Posts, only as a horizontal. I assume you could also add this plugin's sidebar as a widget?
- At the end of the text part of each episode you add "Other episodes you might like" using the Similar Posts plugin from http://rmarsh.com/plugins/similar-posts/ . You configured Similar Posts to exclude episodes in the 'favourites' category. You customized Similar Posts' HTML the same way you did for Recent Posts, only as a horizontal list. This doesn't look like a widget - I assume the plugin has documentation of how to insert it into your post template? Can you control where it will display?
- To automatically present iPhone-compatible videos to iPhone users, you use the blip.tv player to display video on the web page, and use the WPtouch iPhone Theme fromhttp://www.bravenewcode.com/wptouch/ plus Blip.It Phone Handler (WordPress plugin) from http://www.bravenewcode.com/blipit/
- I'm not completely clear what happens but it sounds like the theme+plugin combo will locate the m4v file you host at blip.tv and present it to iPhone users instead of the flash version. Is the WPtouch iPhone Theme seen only by iPhone users, and your regular theme presented to everyone else?
Cheryl
Waz
Mar 9, 2009, 5:35:52 PM3/9/09
to Show-in-a-Box
Hi Cheryl, answers embedded in your text below (sorry if this comes
thru twice, I think I screwed up sending it to the list the first
time). This version has some corrections so please go with it.
Waz
Thanks for this Waz,
I'm going to attempt to summarize, just to make sure I understand
what
you're doing. Will you please correct me where I'm wrong or fill
in any
gaps? I'd like to write this up and post it to showinabox.tv -
it's about
time we had a new article with some solid how-to ideas in it. (I
know more
will come from the hangoutathon next week, but we should document
your work
as well, with links so people can see it in action.)
On http://www.crashtestkitchen.com/
- You add a custom field called 'thumbnail' to every episode
additional 120x90 crop, made as small in filesize as possible, and I
upload it directly to my site using the WordPress picture upload
facility (other people might prefer a Flickr upload for this). I
resize this thumbnail even smaller in my HTML for the widget. If you
relied on calling in your larger Blip thumbnail and resizing you'd
probably slow your site down a lot.
- To highlight "Favourite episodes" in the sidebar, you use the
field from
your episodes.
- You also customized Recent Post's HTML to grab a post's title
the most recent posts, for example if your vlog only shows one episode
on a front and you want to showcase the previous ones as thumbnails.
- You use the Popular Posts plugin from
underneath my 'Favourite episodes'.
For each of these plugins, you can place them as sidebar widgets. To
configure you go into the Settings menu of your Wordpress blog and
configure them there. I use CSS to finesse their display - I'm using
K2 which lets me select my own stylesheet and that's where I make my
changes, assigning div names in the settings for the plugin and then
in CSS doing the style to these divs and the lists etc.
- At the end of the text part of each episode you add "Other
are either available as a sidebar widget, or a line of code you can
insert in your template pretty much wherever you want. I usually only
insert in a template as a last resort.
On http://www.garagenight.tv/
- To automatically present iPhone-compatible videos to iPhone
just roots through the HTML of your video's corresponding page at
Blip, finds 'm4v' and grabs the full URL and serves that to the iPhone
user instead of the Flash player.
What I have done, though, at Garage Night is go into the PHP for
Blip.It and change m4v to mov because I like to use mov files for
various reasons.
At Crash Test Kitchen I have changed it to mp4 because historically as
well as a mov file I have always uploaded to Blip a 400kbps version
that is fairly lightweight therefore loads up faster than the mov
version on a mobile device or slow connection. And mp4 is fully
recognised by browsers and plays fine on all Apple devices as long as
you stick to the encoding rules for the oldest video iPods.
I am sure many people could be very happy using the 'magic iphone
embed' functionality from Blip.tv but it just didn't quite suit my
purposes.
The WPTouch iPhone theme senses the iPhone user agent and is therefore
only seen by iPhone users. At the bottom they get the option to switch
to your regular theme. Even if someone does this I _think_ Blip.It
will still serve them the iPhone-compatible video instead of the Flash
vid; however I don't think it will do this if you just try WPTouch
with your regular theme.
I think there may be some Android compatibility built into WPTouch but
have not investigated this. I don't know what someone on Android sees.
The WPTouch theme doesn't look that great but a CSS junkie could jazz
it up.
A final note for Mac users: if you're lucky enough to have a Mac (I
don't) you can download the iPhone SDK and buried within the folders
you'll find an iPhone simulator that you can use to bench-test how all
this stuff works. I'm not sure whether it has all the functions or
whether it actually play your videos, but will show you how things
look until you can borrow a friend's iPhone (which is what I do
whenever an iPhone owner is nearby). There are browser-based
simulators for other platforms but they are not great.
Waz
http://www.garagenight.tv
http://www.crashtestkitchen.com
thru twice, I think I screwed up sending it to the list the first
time). This version has some corrections so please go with it.
Waz
Thanks for this Waz,
I'm going to attempt to summarize, just to make sure I understand
what
you're doing. Will you please correct me where I'm wrong or fill
in any
gaps? I'd like to write this up and post it to showinabox.tv -
it's about
time we had a new article with some solid how-to ideas in it. (I
know more
will come from the hangoutathon next week, but we should document
your work
as well, with links so people can see it in action.)
On http://www.crashtestkitchen.com/
when you
post it. The content you add to this field is the URL of the
video's
thumbnail image.
Yes except my thumbnail is not just the Blip thumbnail - it's an
post it. The content you add to this field is the URL of the
video's
thumbnail image.
additional 120x90 crop, made as small in filesize as possible, and I
upload it directly to my site using the WordPress picture upload
facility (other people might prefer a Flickr upload for this). I
resize this thumbnail even smaller in my HTML for the widget. If you
relied on calling in your larger Blip thumbnail and resizing you'd
probably slow your site down a lot.
- To highlight "Favourite episodes" in the sidebar, you use the
Recent
Posts plugin from http://rmarsh.com/plugins/recent-posts/ Recent
Posts is
highly configurable and lets you add it to your sidebar as a
widget from the
WordPress admin panel. You configured it to add only posts you
have marked
with a "favourite" category - you use this category exclusively
to
add/remove episodes from the Favourite episodes area of your
sidebar.
- You have Recent Posts configured to call in the 'thumbnail'
Posts plugin from http://rmarsh.com/plugins/recent-posts/ Recent
Posts is
highly configurable and lets you add it to your sidebar as a
widget from the
WordPress admin panel. You configured it to add only posts you
have marked
with a "favourite" category - you use this category exclusively
to
add/remove episodes from the Favourite episodes area of your
sidebar.
field from
your episodes.
- You also customized Recent Post's HTML to grab a post's title
for
display alongside the thumbnail, and hyperlink both thumbnail &
title to the
post's permalink.
Correct. I'm using it in this way but it can be used just to display
display alongside the thumbnail, and hyperlink both thumbnail &
title to the
post's permalink.
the most recent posts, for example if your vlog only shows one episode
on a front and you want to showcase the previous ones as thumbnails.
- You use the Popular Posts plugin from
http://rmarsh.com/plugins/popular-posts-plugin/ to add the
"Popular
today" section of your sidebar. You configured Popular Posts to
exclude
episodes in the 'favourites' category. You customized Popular
Posts' HTML
the same way you did for Recent Posts, only as a horizontal. I
assume you
could also add this plugin's sidebar as a widget?
Yes, correct except it's not a horizontal, it's a vertical right
"Popular
today" section of your sidebar. You configured Popular Posts to
exclude
episodes in the 'favourites' category. You customized Popular
Posts' HTML
the same way you did for Recent Posts, only as a horizontal. I
assume you
could also add this plugin's sidebar as a widget?
underneath my 'Favourite episodes'.
For each of these plugins, you can place them as sidebar widgets. To
configure you go into the Settings menu of your Wordpress blog and
configure them there. I use CSS to finesse their display - I'm using
K2 which lets me select my own stylesheet and that's where I make my
changes, assigning div names in the settings for the plugin and then
in CSS doing the style to these divs and the lists etc.
- At the end of the text part of each episode you add "Other
episodes you
might like" using the Similar Posts plugin from
http://rmarsh.com/plugins/similar-posts/ . You configured
Similar Posts
to exclude episodes in the 'favourites' category. You customized
Similar
Posts' HTML the same way you did for Recent Posts, only as a
horizontal
list. This doesn't look like a widget - I assume the plugin has
documentation of how to insert it into your post template? Can
you control
where it will display?
This one is inserted in the single.php template. Basically all of them
might like" using the Similar Posts plugin from
http://rmarsh.com/plugins/similar-posts/ . You configured
Similar Posts
to exclude episodes in the 'favourites' category. You customized
Similar
Posts' HTML the same way you did for Recent Posts, only as a
horizontal
list. This doesn't look like a widget - I assume the plugin has
documentation of how to insert it into your post template? Can
you control
where it will display?
are either available as a sidebar widget, or a line of code you can
insert in your template pretty much wherever you want. I usually only
insert in a template as a last resort.
On http://www.garagenight.tv/
- To automatically present iPhone-compatible videos to iPhone
users, you
use the blip.tv player to display video on the web page, and use
the
WPtouch iPhone Theme fromhttp://www.bravenewcode.com/wptouch/
plus
Blip.It Phone Handler (WordPress plugin) from
http://www.bravenewcode.com/blipit/
- I'm not completely clear what happens but it sounds like the
use the blip.tv player to display video on the web page, and use
the
WPtouch iPhone Theme fromhttp://www.bravenewcode.com/wptouch/
plus
Blip.It Phone Handler (WordPress plugin) from
http://www.bravenewcode.com/blipit/
theme+plugin combo will locate the m4v file you host at blip.tv
and
present it to iPhone users instead of the flash version. Is the
WPtouch
iPhone Theme seen only by iPhone users, and your regular theme
presented to
everyone else?
Yes that's right, if you have an m4v version it will select it - it
and
present it to iPhone users instead of the flash version. Is the
WPtouch
iPhone Theme seen only by iPhone users, and your regular theme
presented to
everyone else?
just roots through the HTML of your video's corresponding page at
Blip, finds 'm4v' and grabs the full URL and serves that to the iPhone
user instead of the Flash player.
What I have done, though, at Garage Night is go into the PHP for
Blip.It and change m4v to mov because I like to use mov files for
various reasons.
At Crash Test Kitchen I have changed it to mp4 because historically as
well as a mov file I have always uploaded to Blip a 400kbps version
that is fairly lightweight therefore loads up faster than the mov
version on a mobile device or slow connection. And mp4 is fully
recognised by browsers and plays fine on all Apple devices as long as
you stick to the encoding rules for the oldest video iPods.
I am sure many people could be very happy using the 'magic iphone
embed' functionality from Blip.tv but it just didn't quite suit my
purposes.
The WPTouch iPhone theme senses the iPhone user agent and is therefore
only seen by iPhone users. At the bottom they get the option to switch
to your regular theme. Even if someone does this I _think_ Blip.It
will still serve them the iPhone-compatible video instead of the Flash
vid; however I don't think it will do this if you just try WPTouch
with your regular theme.
I think there may be some Android compatibility built into WPTouch but
have not investigated this. I don't know what someone on Android sees.
The WPTouch theme doesn't look that great but a CSS junkie could jazz
it up.
A final note for Mac users: if you're lucky enough to have a Mac (I
don't) you can download the iPhone SDK and buried within the folders
you'll find an iPhone simulator that you can use to bench-test how all
this stuff works. I'm not sure whether it has all the functions or
whether it actually play your videos, but will show you how things
look until you can borrow a friend's iPhone (which is what I do
whenever an iPhone owner is nearby). There are browser-based
simulators for other platforms but they are not great.
Waz
http://www.garagenight.tv
http://www.crashtestkitchen.com
Cheryl Colan
Mar 9, 2009, 5:43:16 PM3/9/09
to show-i...@googlegroups.com
Thanks Waz! Both for adding more detail and correcting my goofs. I don't know why I wrote "horizontal" for your "Popular today" - I was looking right at it on your site. I must have been copy/pasting to reorganize and stuffed it up.
Thanks too for the note about the iPhone SDK, I didn't know we could nab a simulator.
Cheryl
Thanks too for the note about the iPhone SDK, I didn't know we could nab a simulator.
Cheryl
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